OK? I'm keeping the first 2 things like we usually do so that anyone who wants to come just for that can do so and then leave if they like. Folks are welcome to come to any segment of this. But if you come in the middle, nobody's gonna show you what to do, so you better know before hand. Instructions by the lovely Liza Rose of SuicideGirls are linked over there to your left.

Remember THERE IS NO ORYOKI LUNCH. You must BRING YOUR OWN LUNCH! We can all eat together, maybe even say the meal chant. But NO ORYOKI!

***

I put up a few more Nishijima videos the other day. I'll just put up links this time so that everything runs a little smoother here on the blog. These items are slightly more controversial than the last ones. I was actually baiting him during the talks and trying to get him to say controversial stuff. This is about as much controversy as I got.

Someone asked me why I didn't just put all 3 hours of raw video up. Oy! It took like an hour a piece just to encode each of these short videos in the format you need for YouTube. Maybe someday...

Gudo Nishijima Roshi: The Balance Between Love and HateHere Gudo Nishijima Roshi talks about the balance of love and hate in Buddhist practice.

Of course, the word "hate" here does not mean the kind of hate that causes murder, genocide and so on. It refers to the workings of the autonomic nervous system. When hate is unbalanced and overwhelms love we all know there are terrible consequences. Yet when love is unbalanced and overwhelms hate the consequences are equally negative.

I've always found his use of the word "love" and "hate" to describe these subtle states very interesting and useful.

Gudo Nishijima Roshi: Japanese Buddhism in World War IIGudo Nishijima Roshi gives his opinion about Japanese Buddhism and its support of the war effort during World War II. He agrees with Brian Victoria, author of "Zen at War," that many Japanese Buddhists supported Japan's nationalism during the war and he calls this unfortunate. But he strongly denies Victoria's assertion that his teacher Kodo Sawaki was among them. The exaggerations that Nishijima Roshi refers to in the video are given in great detail on this web page (click to view).

To me, the most telling of these exaggerations is when Victoria quotes Sawaki as saying, "We gorged ourselves on killing" when Sawaki served in the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese war. The Japanese phrase in the source material translated as "gorged" was "hara ippai." In my eleven years in Japan I never once heard anyone use the phrase "hara ippai" (literally: full stomach) in a positive context unless perhaps when speaking of actual eating. When used metaphorically it means "fed up." The quote should have been rendered "We got fed up with killing." Furthermore, the quote isn't even actually from Sawaki at all but by a later biographer who put his own words into Sawaki's mouth. Victoria evidently knew this when he used it but did not qualify the quote.

Other quotations that Victoria used to demonstrate Sawaki's supposed war-mongering are equally dubiously translated or from similarly discredited sources. Conversely, one can find many other quotations by Sawaki from outside Victoria's book in which he clearly denounces war. Victoria's is definitely an important book and says stuff that clearly needed to be said. He just went a bit too far to make his point.

Click here to viewGudo Nishijima Roshi: Chanting in BuddhismGudo Nishijima Roshi talks about the place of sutra chanting in Buddhism and has a few choice words to say about the Soto sect. One should note that in spite of what he says here, Nishijima Roshi also led weekly chanting of the Heart Sutra and other Buddhist texts at his Zen dojo in Chiba, Japan for many years. So his words shouldn't be taken as denouncing chanting entirely. Still, the main focus of his teaching is always the practice of Zazen.

Gudo Nishijima Roshi: How to Wear the O-kesaGudo Nishijima Roshi demonstrates the way to put on the o-kesa (or kashaya), the traditional Buddhist robe. Notice he is wearing a kimono under the o-kesa and a Western style dress shirt below that. These are the clothes he just happened to have on when I taped this. Though Nishijima Roshi often wears full Buddhist robes, he believes that the o-kesa is the only truly Buddhist garment. So he often wears it over Western clothes.

His method for tying it is basically Soto style. But there are variations. Some do not hide the cords used to tie it up. Some fold it in a slightly different way.

Sorry for the video drop-outs at the beginning. It clears up pretty quickly.

The Buddhist definition of love is the unselfish wish that someone be happy. And the definition of hate is the wish that they be unhappy. That's how I've learned it from my teachers. I haven't read Karl Menninger, so I don't know how he used these terms.

If one uses the definitions given here, love is an entirely positive thing. IAnd so-called self-hatred, supposedly a problem in the West, doesn't exist by the above definition, because no one wishes that they be unhappy.

When in need of definitions of english words I'm very content with a dictionary of the English language.

The English word love is rather broad and used a number of different senses. You can love your wife and also love your morning cup of coffee. When the term love is used in a traditional Buddhist text, it's being used in a very specific way, as I defined it. This sense of the term is not alien to the Western concept of love. It's the love of a friend for a friend, wishing the best for him or her.

My point being, unless everyone understands how a term is being used, only confusion results. Gudo Nishijima is obviously using the term love in an entirely different sense and it would be silly to argue he's right or wrong without understanding it.

"TOKYO – A Chinese bestseller, entitled The Currency War, describes how Jews are planning to rule the world by manipulating the international financial system. The book is reportedly read in the highest government circles. If so, this does not bode well for the international financial system, which relies on well-informed Chinese to help it recover from the current crisis..."

This is, of course, speculation on top of myth. This manipulation of money theory goes back to Byzantium and the attempts by Rome to hang onto the power they long ago lost. (e.g. Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple).

What is actually hidden in this myth is the fact that Roman coins had less silver in them than the Greek equivalents (e.g. the Mark Anthony Denarii.

The only Jewish conspiracy in Asia is the one percolating in the unsettled minds of the profoundly insecure. Such unsettled minds know no race, tribe, nor geographical borders.

As for the problem of being both a Buddhist and a Jew, it lies, in my opinion, on the false premise that being Jewish is an ethnic. I live in a country where both Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews live, and it is quite obvious that they are quite different, physically speaking. They do share some points of mentality, and, sometimes, of religion (!...) but I'd suggest anyone interested to read Shlomo Sands "When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?".

It is about time to be finished with these demential racist theses which we inherited from the 19th Century.

"It is about time to be finished with these demential racist theses which we inherited from the 19th Century".

The terms 'race' or 'ethnicity' may no longer be scientifically accurate (or fashionable) to describe perceived differences between large groups of people (they'll do for the time being). But it is, imo, undeniable that there are large groups of people who share physical and mental/behavioural characteristics which distinguish them from others.

I'm no scientist, but my guess is that these characteristics derive from shared hereditary and cultural factors.

To observe this is not, I suggest, "racist".

I fear that your objections ("demential"!?) stem from the unhelpful liberal view that just because we share more (genes) than previously assumed, we are 'all the same', and that 'racial' definitions are meaningless.

My experience is that although such definitions can lead to misleading or dangerous stereotyping they are certainly not meaningless. To assert otherwise is to be in denial.

In some ways we're 'all different', in other ways we are all members of groups.

as far as being both jewish and buddhist, I have heard of the term jewboo, but isn't that a description of two diverging philosophies or religions? one faith based the other not? is buddhism ever faith based? I mean you never hear of christboos or musboos. maybe the term means former jew, now buddhist?

Just check out the movie Zeitgeist - the whole thing is a raging conspiracy with the entire middle section dedicated to proving how American bankers (who all coincidentally happen to be Jewish) control and manipulate the US system.

Many bankers and figures of wealth are Jewish. USA is a major supported and provider of arms for Israel - a jewish country established by force in arabic territory. Do I see a pattern here or is it just me?

"It is about time to be finished with these demential racist theses which we inherited from the 19th Century."

Agreed!

1. It's unfortunate if there are any Buddhist or buddhist or whomever attached to "racialism", more of an ideological concept than a factual scientific one.

2. "Race" does not exist. Our ancestors that came from Africa shared similar physical "looks." With human migration and evolution, we differed to our current diversity. Current scientific studies have shown that if similar patters were reproduced, those who we call "White" will shift to "Black" and vice versa.

Michel said: "I live in a country where both Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews live, and it is quite obvious that they are quite different, physically speaking. They do share some points of mentality."

I think I'm going to haf to call you on that last part Michel, less you wanna get more specific with your euphemisms.

No euphemisms here. Most Ashkenazim just look like East Europeans, and most Sephardim just look like Maghrebi Arabs. They share cultural aspects, for their being Jews, indeed.

Another Nymous wrote:

Recognising that humans fall into geographically, culturally, physically recognisable groups that share characteristics doesn't make one a racist.

Indeed not. Racism is positing that a given person will be such and such according to his/her looks.

For instance, during the Vichy Regime, people were sent to extermination camps not on the ground of being Jewish, but essentially on the ground of having one or more relatives who were. THAT's racism.

If you meet a black Frenchman, especially if from some southern city like Toulouse, racism is negating his being French on account of the colour of his skin. But, and especially if the man plays rugby, you'll just have another southwestern French, with all the cultural characteristics of that, bad or good, albeit of dark colouration.

Racism would be (and is, alas, at times) to consider a Frenchman of North African physical looks as being automatically an Arab (he/she could be of Spanish descent), and discriminating on that basis.

"Don't be silly. What are you scared of acknowledging? Recognising that humans fall into geographically, culturally, physically recognisable groups that share characteristics doesn't make one a racist."

Scared? You confusing superficial things, things that are fluid with some type of unchanging inate "race." Racialism is an idealogy used to enforce a social strata.

"You confusing superficial things, things that are fluid with some type of unchanging inate "race." Racialism is an idealogy used to enforce a social strata.

Are you afraid of impermanence?"

I said nothing about "unchanging innate race". I'm just asking a question:

Here and now, do humans fall into geographically, culturally, physically recognisable groups that share characteristics? Never mind about "fluid...impermanence". I'm talking about here and now, in this world.

I see that they do. And sometimes, in some contexts, acknowledging that fact aids sensible discourse.

Well, remembering where we started, it seems that Nishijima IS saying that too much of this sort of thing isn't good for you, or others. Which will be heresy to many who regard themselves as Buddhists.

This is from the "Science and Buddhism" chapter of "To Meet The Real Dragon":

"Dr Menninger preferred to characerize the two forces in human life as love and hate.He described hate as the aggressive instinct: the active, volitional, intellectual side of our nature. Love, on the other hand, was passive and sensual. It was the protective and perceptive instinct in human beings. According to Dr Menninger, the task of life was to find a balance between these two forces."

The Buddhist definition of love is the unselfish wish that someone be happy. And the definition of hate is the wish that they be unhappy. That's how I've learned it from my teachers. I haven't read Karl Menninger, so I don't know how he used these terms.

Without definitions, non-separation is the blossoming of true love. _/|\_